Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity ordered closed over coronavirus

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was ordered closed and foreign tourists were banned from West Bank hotels on Thursday as health officials announced seven cases of coronavirus in the Palestinian territories. The measures by the Palestinian Authority's tourism ministry were a particular blow to Bethlehem, where businesses depend largely on visitors to the church, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born.

The precautions were announced after several suspected cases emerged. Palestinian Health Minister Mai Alkaila said later authorities had identified seven positive cases, all of them Palestinian employees at Bethlehem's Angel Hotel. Health officials said they suspected the seven, the first reported cases of the illness in the Palestinian territories, contracted it from tourists who had stayed at the hotel recently.

Just three months ago Bethlehem was hailing its best Christmas for two decades, the mayor and hoteliers said, with visitor numbers in 2019 numbers surpassing the 1.5 million people who came in 2018. The Latin Patriarchate of the Holy Land said the Church of the Nativity, which was first founded in 339 and rebuilt and extended over the centuries, would be closed for two weeks, along with other churches and mosques in the Bethlehem area.

The ban on foreign guests at West Bank hotels will also last two weeks, the tourism ministry said. "This affects us dramatically," said Joey Canavati, manager of the 58-room Alexander Hotel in Bethlehem. "Our workers are essentially laid off for the next 14 days. We will be closed down completely."

Canavati said groups of tourists from the United States, Poland and Cameroon had already cancelled their bookings. However British artist Banksy's hotel in Bethlehem, The Walled Off Hotel, brought a touch of humour to situation by strapping a surgical mask to the model monkey bellhop.

The Palestinian governor of the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday ordered its Muslim and Christian holy sites shut as a public health precaution. The Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank under interim peace accords with neighbouring Israel.

Fifteen people have been diagnosed with the virus in Israel. On Wednesday, Israel ordered people traveling to Israel from Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Switzerland to go into home quarantine, and cancelled a military exercise with troops from the U.S. European Command.

Citizens from those countries would not be allowed into Israel unless they could show they had made quarantine arrangements ahead of time. Israel has already imposed the quarantine measure with regard to flights from Italy, China and Singapore.